kev313

For those who don't check the other sections, I thought that I'd mention that I'm thinning some of the "vintage collection" (my wife has a different name for this..."that which prevents me from having a shoe closet") and have listed it in the Garage sale section. a Shure branded SME 3009 Series II Improved, Altec 515-16g's, and a MC250. Amy, if this post isn't kosher, please go ahead and delete it. Thanks.

Maybe I DO like the way those look...

Yep...that's how I do it.

1102 and if I didn't work for myself, I'd be fired. I should probably fire myself.

Nice. I like the idea of competing xti threads. Given Mark's comment on page 25 of his thread, tho, I think the wife comment is a bit out of line. Maybe because yours is a xti2000 as opposed to Mark's 1000, however, you didn't mean it that way? Kev313, Sorry but your banned to the Peanut Gallery and in this thread there is no Howdy Doody, so you are out of luck. I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit. That said, I'd ask you to take my comment on this thread on its face. Given your posts on the other thread, I cannot imagine the wife comment was an innocent coincidence. We take a lot of shots here, but that is an absolute lack of class. I'm not pro-Mark, anti-Crown, pro-Juicy Music or anything else you may be imagining. I'm pro decorum, or whatever passes for it here. That comment doesn't.

Nice. I like the idea of competing xti threads. Given Mark's comment on page 25 of his thread, tho, I think the wife comment is a bit out of line. Maybe because yours is a xti2000 as opposed to Mark's 1000, however, you didn't mean it that way?

Is that out by Collinsville?

Funny the topic of Tom Waits should come up. I've always used his recordings to evaluate certain aspects of 2 channel systems. I don't find his albums to be particularly well-recorded, and it is my recollection that Tom is pretty much ok with that (recording parts of songs at times, it is rumored, in his bathroom). Anyhow, there is a lot of noise going on in his recordings and by that I simply means there is alot going on at the same time. When I had my Abbys with the little Fostex drivers, the "Waits Test" caused them to fall flat on their face. It was just horrible...I couldn't make heads or tales of it. Songs that I could love on my car radio were rendered unrecognizable by the Cain and Cains. It was a bit of a mini-education on the limits of this Voight based design. (For the record amplification was not limited to SET during that experiment, but also included a 15 watt PP el84 and, in a moment of weakness, my 50 or 100 watt Cary v12r...nothing worked). On my PHY-HP based single drivers loaded on a folded OB, Waits comes off much better. I'd be interested to hear, Mark, how your Tektrons do with Tom Waits. Tom's vocals can also be a challenge - a range from muddy or recessed to piercing and shrill, buried in the mix, unintelligible... I should note that my Cornwalls rocked Tom Waits. It was a g-r-e-a-t match.

oh yeah. In fact, a young Mr. Waits has been gracing the forum with his presence as my my avatar for 5 years. Enjoy!

Interesting... I'll admit that when I read your above comment (and the associated CD's with it) the first thought through my head was... "well, aren't the 'audiophile' (with the fancy words & descriptions) doing the same thing? Perhaps not... but that's kind of my take on it. Meaning... take those same CD's and put it through the two speaker brands mentioned in the beginning.... which one is now the reference standard for those same CD's? I wonder if the reference standard can change depending on which CD is in... then how can it really be the reference standard? Another take is, how can Coke and Diet Sprite be a reference standard of the same catagory? Furthermore...regarding the comments about leathery wine & such... I'm not a wine person, but it seems to me that each sip of wine is of itself, an 'original' experience. We however, are talking about a reproduction of an event so in the case of wine... each sip is "reality" but reality in the recorded world is what happened when the note was first made, no? I realize that if made in the studio, you then have additional influences of all the gyrations the signal might go through from string pluck to mixer board etc.. then to CD or LP creation. Richard--- Now you are getting there. The "musical reality" was a guy playing his violin in some 3D space and the listener who heard it at that moment. Whatever happens AFTER that such as using mics to convert pressure to electricity and storing it for later processing and then on to a disc, is NOT THE MUSIC. What is on that disc has never been heard as a musical event - - only an electrical event later on in the mixing room. And unless you have that room, with those speakers and gear, you will not hear what the mixer put on that CD - period. And whatever IS on that disc, is NOT the 3D reality of the guy bowing his violin in a space. Where does that leave you? We should all remember the famous demonstration when Paul Klipsch had Khorns behind the curtain with a symphony orchestra in front. When the musicians put down their instruments in the middle of the performance, walked away, and the curtain was raised revealing the sound source the people were astonished. Thats good enough for me! Don Perhaps, although, for the purposes of this discussion, I suppose the key question would be "Were the Klipschorns playing a recording of THAT orchestra in THAT room?" If not, then perhaps they are not too "accurate" according to your potential example

See? It's good for your post count.

I'm right there with ya. Try multiple posts instead of paragraphs.

whooooooops! too late. sorry - should've read the last post. Well, enjoy your new player - at least you should be able to get some good deals on the hd-dvd's. Maybe they can help with your question at avs.

According to who? I'm not disputing that it has some flexibility over the oppo (in that you can play a dead format), but the oppos got some of the highest scores ever at Secrets of HT and Hi-Fi on the benchmarks. Plus I would be willing to bet...now I am an unabashed oppo fan...but I am willing to bet that an oppo will kill the tosh for audio.

I've never heard 'em, but in pictures the James products look really well constructed...like little Hashimotos.

Har har. Wait...time alignment?

THAT was funny.

What if the recording (ie the source) is poorly done? Should your system still make it sound like music? And if it does, what will it do to a recording that was done right to begin with? Do you want your system to sound like "actual music", or have it sound like the recording? I don't think you can have it both ways. You'd have to first define "poor recording" - but I assume you don't mean it had sour notes, or sloppy performance, but rather was badly engineered. In the latter case, there's no help for that, obviously. And then how can one ever judge the accuracy of a speaker? Accurate to the original recording? Accurate to "live music"? Live music from where? At the end of the 2007 CSO season I had the opportunity to hear Beethoven's Ninth on 2 different evenings. Once from my regular seat - lower box four rows up, right side 4 seats off the middle of the aisle. The second evening was from middle of the floor - literally smack in the middle of the house, ground floor. Same performers, same music, way WAY different sounds. What is the reality against which this "accuracy" is judged?

Said it before and I still think it's true...U-G-L-Y. Maybe with a black front (I particularly dislike to alternating grain patterns of the veneer) the hideous effect of square horns vs. round cones disaster could be mitigated. A softening of the angle of the front top of the speaker to better match the boat tail rear would also be helpful. I've never been a fan of that particular veneer either...it reminds me of some Onix Rocket HT spears I used to have. While I have not seen the Palladiums personally, at this point I would say that the Onix cheapies (really rather good construction and veneer work) pull of the luxe look better than the Klipsches. I know it is the sound that is supposed to count and I have every expectation that these will be great, but I'm pretty sure, based on the marketing copy, that great sound was only one of the design objectives. These Palladiums look like they are going 7 different directions at the same time. Well you know what they say about opinions, but for my money, in the Design Ultimate Fighting Championship, designed objects for interior spaces weight class, Charles Eames knocked the Palladium designer down and Ray came to poop in his/her face.

Yup from Joe who is n5kat on eBay.

All of the recent talk about 5th graders building speakers has reminded me that I had been meaning to plug something I picked up on eBay the other day - the Sound Practices magazine cd. It's got all the issues on cd-rom in .pdf for about $30. I'm obviously not affiliated with the seller, but I have had alot of fun reading through these old articles many of which were written by names you might recognize like Gordon Rankin of Wavelength and Don Garber of Fi amongst others. I know many people here enoy a good DIY amp, preamp, or speaker project, and I'd give a hearty recommendation to you to check out the Sound Practices cd for some inspiration. Even if you don't want to build anything, I think that anyone with a passing interest in tubes and horns would enjoy reading these articles. AND it just might inspire you to build something.

Nice! Enjoy the change and have fun. I, myself, just picked up a pair of Supravox field coil full range drivers that I will be experimenting with over the coming weeks. It's not Klipsch, but it is fun to try something new...

On the head of the designer that thought the opposing grain patterns of the veneer was a good idea? Sorry! My opinion only, of course. I recognize I'm in the minority on this issue.

In the interest of full disclosure I should also note that I am the owner of an amp which S'phile found to have up to three times the output impedance as the one originally cited by Dean. In that instance, although the issue of sound variance among loudspeakers was raised, much less was made out of the issue of a high output impedance. Oh...and I like it with my speakers. (For whatever THAT is worth). http://www.stereophile.com/tubepoweramps/601cary/index6.html

Kev-- That's the "thing" that is entirely impossible to express to people who don't hear, or care about that "thing." The so-called "musicality" simply can not be expressed in words to another person any more than trying to explain love or art or beauty, or the taste of chocolate really. The embodiment of it is not intellectual in any sense (frequency response chart deviations), it is purely in the experiential realm. I don't think anyone designing such amps isn't fully aware of the compromise being made, they just prefer this set of outcomes over others. Mark - I hear you. The output impedance of an amplifier will have an effect on the sound but, much like wattage (specifically LOW watts), that why, IMO, speaker selection and system matching becomes even more crucial. So I can appreciate that , as an engineer ho designs amps, you would make this design choice to obtain a particular sound with a particular type of speaker. I'm not familiar with your amp, so I cannot comment on its performance on speakers with a less than optimal impedance plot (optimal referring here to the way it matches up with the pCats). If I'm off base on that, please feel free to castigate me in public view.